


on the battleground between hearts and glances I am slain

by Emotionally Compromised Robots (CDRomelle)



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: After the Movie, Anal Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Protective Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Protective Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:54:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25539853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CDRomelle/pseuds/Emotionally%20Compromised%20Robots
Summary: Joe thought he was being subtle.He wasn't. Not to Nicky.Nicky saw it all. Saw how Joe managed to be the first one into their safe house after London, the first one on watch that night. Even when they left Booker on the beach, Joe was the last up the stairs, a silent signal to Booker that Joe no longer trusted him with their companions' backs.But now it's been three weeks, and Joe has barely slept.Nicky knows what they both need.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 51
Kudos: 650





	on the battleground between hearts and glances I am slain

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from a medieval Arabic love poem by Ibn al-Fāriḍ, translated by Emil Homerin.

Joe thought he was being subtle. 

He wasn't. Not to Nicky. 

Nicky saw it all. Saw how Joe managed to be the first one into their safe house after London, the first one on watch that night. The first one to the door of the bar where they debated Booker's fate, holding it open for the others so he was also the last one in, his body between them and the world, then casually sliding into the seat at their table from which he could easily watch both the entrance and Booker's silhouette through the window. Even when they left Booker on the beach, Joe was the last up the stairs, a silent signal to Booker that Joe no longer trusted him with their companions' backs. 

First in and last out of Copley's house, then it was back into the car, Andy driving them the five hours through the Chunnel into France. 

"You guys should get some sleep," Andy said, her knuckles white on the steering wheel, mostly for Nile's benefit. Nile slept most of the five hours, her head lolling on Nicky's shoulder. He managed to get an hour or two himself, lulled to sleep by and in spite of the sound of Joe bouncing his leg from the front. 

"Hal namat?" Nicky asked Joe when they got to their destination, a small auberge in rural Normandy, the kind of place that wouldn't blink at four foreign travelers showing up without reservations and paying in cash. 

"Nem," Joe said absently, his hands in his jacket pockets as he strode up to the little cottage that was theirs for the next day. 

But the bags under Joe's eyes named him a liar. 

Nicky exhaled through his nose and followed. Pretended not to notice when Joe again held the door open for the other three, his arm coming up protectively after Nile as she trailed in last. 

Joe needed this, Nicky knew. Joe chafed against the ragged edge of the void left by Booker, their fixer, their problem-solver, their friend, and took it upon himself to fill that absence himself. So Nicky would let it happen. For now. 

But three weeks later, nothing had changed. 

The four of them—Andy, Nile, Joe and Nicky—had zigzagged their way across the Mediterranean, staying in hostels or camping in the tent Joe had picked up in Aveyron, vanishing into the wide, fast world, the only tether to their brief infamy the encrypted burner phone with Copley's number in it that Andy kept turned off in a copper mesh pouch in her pocket. 

Now they were just outside Tunis, and Nicky could feel the tension radiating off of Joe as the two of them entered a blue and white hotel and approached the check-in desk. 

"How many rooms will you need?" the hostess asked. Joe opened his mouth, but Nicky beat him to it—

"Thlath min fadlik," he said, holding up three fingers, and Joe raised his eyebrows but said nothing. 

"Easier to keep a lookout when we're all in one room," Joe said under his breath as they went back out to fetch Andy and Nile, waiting in the hotel courtyard. 

"Easier to sleep through the night when you don't keep a lookout," Nicky returned, then smiled at Andy and Nile before Joe could respond and started handing out room keys. "For you, and for you." 

"My own room?" Nile said, with undisguisable relief. 

Nicky shrugged. "It was time for a splurge." 

"Thank fuck," said Andy. "The kid kicks in her sleep." Her voice light, but her eyes asking Nicky a question. 

"—I do not," Nile protested, but they weren't listening—

Nicky nodded, and the corner of Andy's mouth curved up, just a little. 

Joe huffed out a breath and crossed his arms, his brows climbing toward his hairline. 

"Let's go," said Nicky.

The hotel wasn't big, but their rooms were on different floors. Joe all but glowered as Andy got off the elevator first, waved them a jaunty good-bye before the doors closed again. 

"Is everything okay?" Nile asked, looking between their faces. 

"Yes," said Nicky. "Do you have enough cash?"

"I think so—"

"Text me if you want more. It is thirteen o'clock. Meet you in the lobby at twenty for dinner?"

"Sure." 

"Keep your eyes open," said Joe as the elevator doors opened on his and Nicky's floor. 

Nile nodded. "Of course." 

"And have some fun," said Nicky, gesturing Joe out of the elevator. 

Joe gave him an exasperated look, but said nothing. Nile looked for a moment like she was about to ask, but then the elevator doors were closing and it was just Joe and Nicky in the hallway. 

Joe hefted his duffel bag and stalked down the hallway. 

Inside their room it was small but airy and full of sun, with whitewashed walls and a broad window that looked out to the glittering Mediterranean Sea. Nicky leaned against the closed door and watched as Joe threw his bag on the bed, unzipped it with a bit more force than was necessary and pulled out a shotgun and his scimitar.

"It's still too soon after London," he said, his back to Nicky as he reloaded the shotgun. "Too hot. And no more Booker to cover our tracks."

"Joe—"

"You think Nile will notice if she finds herself in the background of a tourist photo?"

"Joe—"

"And Andy, she'll go out God knows where and rip her stitches out—" 

"Yusuf." 

"Don't do that." The shotgun clicked in his hands as Joe snapped the barrel closed. "Andromache—"

"—Doesn't want to feel coddled," said Nicky. 

"Someone needs to—"

"Protect us?" said Nicky. "When was the last time you slept more than four hours in a night?"

"Don't change the subject—"

"When?"

"Since before we misjudged Copley and became lab rats." 

"We didn't misjudge Copley, actually," Nicky said mildly. "I would say that Copley misjudged Copley." 

Joe let out a growling sigh. "I hate it when you do this."

"When I do what?" said Nicky. 

"Act like I'm being unreasonable." 

Nicky said nothing. For a moment the only sound in the room was the bright murmur of the sea and the breeze, against the click of Joe fiddling with the shotgun clip and safety. Still not turning around.

"You do have to at least acknowledge that some people aren't buying that Merrick's death was a suicide," Joe said. 

"Nile told us that was a conspiracy theory website," said Nicky, patiently. "She said no one believes it." 

"Conspiracy theories can still do damage," said Joe. "Or have you forgotten Mainz, 1349?"

Nicky crossed his arms. "I have not." 

The muscles of Joe's shoulders, so clear through his close-fitting green shirt, contracted and then relaxed. He turned around and looked at Nicky, his eyes dark. 

"I know. I know." 

Nicky sighed, dragged a hand across his face, pushed off the door and crossed the room to him. Joe lifted a hand, turning away in a half-hearted protest, but Nicky nudged his arm down and pressed himself against Joe's back, his arms encircling his waist and his chin on Joe's shoulder. 

"We can't keep going like this." 

Joe folded his arms over Nicky's, the shotgun loose in his fingers. "I want to kill Booker." But the exhaustion in his voice said otherwise.

"Hm," said Nicky, tone light but his eyes cold. "It would be a welcome diversion for him. You would be doing him a favor." 

Their eyes met, Joe's gaze cutting to the side in spite of himself. Brows still twisted, but a reluctant softening at the corner of his eye as he tilted his head, his cheek brushing Nicky's.

"With him gone, and Andy..."

"I know," said Nicky. "We'll figure it out. But put it down, just for a little while. Put it down, Yusuf."

Joe exhaled, and Nicky inhaled. The gravity in the room shifted. Joe's weight transferred to Nicky's shoulders, the burning in Joe's throat transubstantiated into the fierce green light of Nicky's eyes. Joe exhaled, and Nicky breathed in.

Then Joe popped the shells out of the shotgun, threw the empty gun aside, and wrapped his now-free hands more tightly around Nicky's arms. 

For a moment they stood like that, swaying gently. Then Nicky pulled his arms away. Joe made a displeased sound but Nicky only gave his back a gentle shove toward the bed. "Lie down." 

Joe heaved a sigh. "Will you—"

Nicky was already picking up the room's desk chair. Joe sat down on the bedside as Nicky wedged the chair against the door, under the doorhandle, then took out both their swords and leaned them against the end table. 

"On the bed," Nicky said again. So Joe swung his legs onto the covers, let himself fall back to the pillow. Looking anything but relaxed, the cords of his neck working as he watched Nicky. 

Without comment, Nicky sat down on the foot of the bed, pulled Joe's feet into his lap, and unlaced his boots, cupping each heel as he slid them off. 

Joe watched him, his gaze dark and intense, head cocked to the side as if he'd just noticed a song that had been playing in the background for minutes now, maybe hours. Maybe days. When Joe's shoes were discarded, Nicky bent over his legs and unlaced his own, toed them off, then shifted up the bed to sit astride Joe's hips. 

Joe reached up to cup Nicky's face between both of his own. "Nicky." 

Nicky buried his hands in Joe's hair, tugging gently at the roots, and let him tilt their heads together until Nicky's forehead rested against Joe's. Their breath mingled, lips not touching, Joe's gaze still fixed, bright and dark as coals. 

"Take this off," Nicky murmured, his hands sliding out of Joe's hair to tug at his collar, down further to the hem of his shirt. Joe raised his shoulders off the bed to help him, hands not leaving Nicky's face until he had to. When the shirt was off and discarded Nicky grabbed the scruff of his own, snug around his broad shoulders and looser with the tapering of his waist, and tossed it on top of Joe's. 

"Nicky," Joe said again, one hand going back to Nicky's cheek, the other to the waistband of Nicky's pants. "Let me—" 

Nicky shook his head. "Let me." He popped the button on Joe's jeans, shifted up to his knees to pull them down, taking Joe's socks with them, then shimmied off his own, twisting to sit down on Joe's thighs as he did, reaching for the duffel bag still sitting at the foot of the bed. 

He came back with a small bottle in his hand, shifting again to lie fully on top of Joe, his elbows on top of Joe's shoulders, the soft hairs of their thighs a sweet gentle scrape as their hips lined up. 

Joe's hands found Nicky's face once again, thumbs caressing the shells of his ears, studying Nicky's face like rereading a book of poetry long ago memorized. "Nicky…" A question to which he already knew the answer, knew it even before Nicky pressed their foreheads together, nodded into Joe's skin. 

"I need this too." 

Joe exhaled, deep and vocal, all the lines of his body gentling as he lay back against the pillow and let Nicky's lips follow his into a kiss. 

It deepened immediately, Nicky sucking Joe's tongue into his mouth, Joe breathless with his nose pressed against that sloping cheekbone. They were both half-hard already, cocks trapped between their stomachs, but neither thrust into the friction, only pressed themselves closer, hands gripping hair and shoulders and necks. 

The kiss finally broke when Nicky got another fistful of Joe's tight curls and tilted his head back, mouth trailing down to suck at the hard small knob of Joe's Adam's apple, lips following it as it bobbed with Joe's breath, with his dry, panting swallow. 

Joe's thighs twitched, came up to bracket Nicky's hips in spite of himself, heels against Nicky's ass to press him closer, but Nicky pulled away, just far enough to hook one arm under Joe's knee. Another kiss almost drowned out the sound of the bottle clicking open and then, as Joe bit down on Nicky's lower lip and sucked, a slick, slightly cold finger brushed against his entrance, then pushed in. 

And it burned, burned in a way that drove all other thoughts from his mind, all memories of any other kinds of pain from his muscles, leaving him shaking and gasping and batting Nicky's head to the side with his own so his teeth could sink into the meat of Nicky's shoulder. 

"Good?" Nicky asked, and the word hadn't left his lips before Joe answered, "Nem, sì, yeah…" 

They shared every hot, harsh breath between them as Nicky worked him open, always just this side of too much, enough to keep him grabbing for purchase, for stability, in Nicky's hair.

"Tanafas," said Nicky, and Joe gave himself permission to do what was asked of him, the air cool and tasting of the sea as he held it in his chest and let it go. "Tanafas."

Two fingers followed, then three. Nicky's gaze dark and steady, everything he took a gift, a relief. 

Then his fingers found that spot, and Joe bent in half, the shock of pleasure-pain contracting every muscle, jerking his knees up to press against Nicky's ribs, drawing blood from Nicky's lip. 

Nicky pressed his palm against the curve of Joe's ass, fingers buried deep, then slipped free to grip Joe's hip, thumb pressed into the divot between hip and groin. 

"Aqlib," he said, and Joe did so without hesitation, his knees and ankles knocking together under Nicky's weight as he twisted onto his stomach. Nicky tugged on his hips, and Joe got his knees up beneath his hips, resting his weight on his forearms and chest, face half-buried in the pillow but looking back over his shoulder to watch as Nicky pressed his own hips forward, his length rubbing between Joe's cheeks as if he couldn't bear to not be touching him even for the second it took to snap open the bottle and pour another pool of oil into his palm. 

Then his hands were back, one gripping Joe's hip and then sliding up to the small of his back as with his other he slicked himself. Joe craned his head, trying to get a glimpse of Nicky's dick, but Nicky pushed him back down with a hand between his shoulder blades. The bed shifted as Nicky moved his knees inside Joe's, lining up. Then Joe felt the whole weight of him against his back as Nicky slid home. 

The groan that poured out of Joe's mouth was the sound of everything that wasn't Nicky leaving his body. 

Their hands found each other on the pillow over Joe's head, Nicky's over his, then his over Nicky's, anchoring himself as Nicky enveloped him, stomach to back. Joe rolled his hips but Nicky couldn't be hurried, the juts of his hips straining against Joe's ass as he nestled deeper still, his shoulders curling around Joe's and his stubbly cheeks scraping against Joe's beard. No friction, only closeness. It was perfect. It was agony.

"Nicolò, you are killing me," he gasped. "In broad daylight, slain by the moon." 

The warm rumble of Nicky's laughter stirred between his shoulder blades. Slowly, languidly, he rocked back—Joe groaned at the separation—then sank back in. 

Joe saw stars. "Bello, jamil, bellissimo…"

A moment of fumbling as Nicky adjusted his grip and Joe steadied himself, then Nicky's hips snapped forward again, and again, and again, and Joe could only hang on, one hand on Nicky's wrist and the other arm twisted up behind him, elbow planted on the bed to grasp Nicky's hair as Nicky licked a stripe up his shoulder and neck. 

There were no more words then. Only half-sobbed gasps as Nicky fucked into him, using his grip on Joe's chin and shoulder as his leverage, his weight heavy and all-encompassing. Hard but gentle, firm and rolling; a tear leaked out of Joe's eye, dripped down the side of his nose. 

Nicky licked it away.

A vague impression came into the back of Joe's mind. A ship, bobbing on blue water. Guided by skillful hands through the sun and the waves. Wind rushing, hull swaying, utterly given over to the course charted by the one at the helm. Had he written this poem before? He couldn't remember. The waves were endless.

Nicky shifted, releasing Joe's shoulder without breaking the pace of his hips, and the weight against Joe's upper back increased, pressing the breath out of him as that hand snaked under his trembling arm, scraped through the hairs on his chest on its way down, down, down. 

He ducked his head—Nicky's other hand still gripping him by the chin—and bit down on the meat between his thumb and forefinger as Nicky's traveling hand found the base of his dick. 

And stayed there, its hold firm but unmoving, as Nicky's hips moved and moved, each thrust lighting him up, hard enough to take him apart but slow enough to make it last, and last, and last, until—

"Habibi, please, Nico, min fadlik, habibi—" 

"'Iinaa sufun, ahh—" 

Nicky shifted, one hand going back to fist tightly in Joe's curls, as the other one started to glide up and down Joe's dick, hard and slick and straining, everything hot and bright like a blade between his ribs, burning and burning, killing him and keeping him alive. 

Words fell away; no metaphor or simile could reach him here. Only this. Only Nicky.

Joe buried his head into the pillow and came.

Shaking, choking on air and fabric, Nicky coaxing him through it with ever-gentling touches. Joe slumped, his knees slipping out from under his hips until he was flat on the bed, his own come wet beneath his belly and Nicky heavy on his shoulders, kissing his ear, his cheek, his beard. 

"Nicolò," he said, when he could speak again. An encouragement, a plea, a command. "Nicolò..." 

"Girati, amore mio, voglio vederti." 

Nicky pulled out, helped pull and nudge Joe onto his back, and their arms wound around each other as Nicky returned, his dick slipping easily inside. A new rhythm began: hard and quick thrusts, each one an aftershock, a poker banking the coals, pleasure uncomplicated by anticipation, only a sweet prolonging until finally Nicky bowed his head and shuddered, his dick pulsing inside of Joe as he released. 

They lay there for uncountable minutes, limbs tangled and breath evening out. Joe didn't realize he had fallen asleep until he woke to Nicky dragging a warm wet washcloth over his belly, between his legs. 

Joe just watched, comfortable in the haze and the calm. Knowing Nicky could read everything he needed to know in the weight of his gaze. 

Nicky went into the bathroom, came back with two bottles of water, handed one to Joe. He drank deeply, not even trying to stop a little stream of it from dripping out the corner of his mouth, running cool and soothing down his chin.

He handed it back to Nicky, who set both bottles down on the end table and then climbed back into bed, into Joe's arms. Joe pulled him in, settling himself against Nicky's back, knees tucked into the bend of Nicky's knees. Nicky reached a hand up to ruffle Joe's hair one more time—Joe kissed his neck in response, and Nicky chuckled, soft and tired, before dropping his hands on top of Joe's. 

Joe closed his eyes, and slept. 

They missed dinner with Nile that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive me for any Italian or Arabic translation errors I made! I used a proper dictionary, not just google translate, but I probably still messed up. Here's what the lines mean (or are meant to mean): 
> 
> Hal namat? - Did you sleep? (Arabic)  
> Nem - Yes (Arabic)  
> Thlath min fadlik - Three, please (Arabic)  
> Tanafas - breathe (2nd person imperative, directed at a man) (Arabic)  
> Aqlib- turn over (2nd person imperative, directed at a man) (Arabic)  
> Bello, jamil, bellissimo - Beautiful, beautiful, so beautiful (Italian, Arabic, Italian)  
> Habibi - sweetheart (Arabic)  
> 'Iinaa sufun - I will (Arabic)  
> Girati, amore mio, voglio vederti - Roll over, my love, I want to see you (Italian)
> 
> Also, the moon is a common motif in medieval Arabic love poems. Most of my research is from the article "Male-Male Love in Classical Arabic Poetry," by Thomas Bauer. 
> 
> This wasn't beta'd, so feel free to message me about any grammar issues. I'm already aware the POV kind of shifts from Nicky to Joe halfway through, but that just isn't going to be fixed because I choose not to ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Anyway I just think Joe deserves to get fucked sometimes too, you know? 
> 
> I'm on twitter @CDRomelle


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